Dear People of Maine

Dear People of Maine:

This summer I wrote about taking my family to Maine for a    vacation.  I wrote of the deep love I feel for that stretch of Southern Maine from Oqunquit to Falmouth that holds the memories of my childhood and teenage years in every mile.  I wrote about long days on the beach chasing waves, searching for sand dollars, and grappling with the ghosts of family who haunted me at every turn. I wrote about the satisfaction of sharing stories of skee-ball prowess at Old Orchard with my brother and illicit bar crawls through Portland with my sister.  I wrote of the quiet emptiness that came of gathering at my parent’s gravesite and the need to connect with my home state and its people in places as pedestrian as the local Hannaford or cultured as the Portland Museum of Art.  During our days and nights on Higgins Beach we blended seamlessly with every other family there.  Why shouldn’t we?  We, after all, were just another family trying to keep the beach umbrella from blowing away and wondering if 10am was too early to open the big bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.  The fact that my family had two moms instead of a mom and a dad never turned anyone’s head. And really, why should it have?  In fact the house we rented for that glorious week belonged to an old friend from high school and her wife.  Clearly this was a welcoming community in a welcoming state.

As we drove down Route One that August Saturday on our way home, crammed into my jeep Liberty, tanned, with our stash of Len Libby Chocolate jammed near the air conditioning vents so it wouldn’t melt, I felt a tug at my heart as I realized that as much as I’ve come to feel at home in the rocky individualistic landscape of New Hampshire, Maine would always be the home that welcomed me back again and again.

Until last Tuesday.

Last spring when Maine Governor John Baldacci gave his stamp of approval to legislation allowing gays and lesbians to marry I rejoiced.  The momentum of that act carried forward to June when New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed marriage equality into law as well.   Kelly and I talked about how great it was to have the option to either get married here in the state we both call home or perhaps to entertain ideas of a seaside wedding in Ogunquit, our favorite quick jaunt destination.   During those days it never occurred to me that the people of Maine would vote to approve a referendum grounded in  hatred, discrimination, and injustice and take away the right that had been granted.   When I woke Wednesday morning to the news of the previous days voting on Referendum One I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach.  To quote the character I’m playing in a show right now “how selfish and how cruel.”  Selfish to feel that one has the audacious right to vote on whether another human being can marry the person she loves and cruel to exercise that vote with such callous disregard for the people and families it will affect.

This week had been hard on many fronts.  Liza was sick and out of school for two days which necessitated the tried and true “working mom of a sick kid” juggling act.  Two shows at the theater I work at had me driving back to work as soon as Kelly got home from her job as a nurse to relieve me at home.  A long frustrating search for a costume for my show had left me as usual hating the oversized and oddly-shaped body I inhabit and envying the young slender women who had a world of costumes to choose from.  By Saturday tempers were flaring at home as the stir-craziness of the sick house set in.  My peri-menopausal hormones in full swing I snapped at Liza for her attitude and petulance and burst into tears when Kelly made a joke about my costume hunt.  When I returned from the theater that evening, I was greeted by a scene that made me cry for completely different reasons.  Kelly informed me she and Liza had shared many long talks, folded laundry together, made and ate dinner together (Liza set and cleared the table), researched astrology and family trees on the internet, and that during that time Kelly had gently asked Liza to “give mommy a break now and then.”  The house of turmoil I had left was clean and calm.  I apologized for my tears and outburst and they shared the knowing look of two people who had decided the third was lovably crazy and told me it was ok.  As we turned in for the night I reflected on how blessed I was to have my girls.

This family scene could have been replayed thousands of times over in homes all across the country.  The fact that the players were two women and a child rather than a man, woman, and child bears no consequence.  This is my family, yes but at the end of the day it is just a family like any other — one full of hugs and hurts and tears and misunderstandings and game nights and grocery store runs and school chorus concerts and holiday traditions and vacation trips to the beaches of Maine.

So to the people of Maine I ask what is so threatening about this family picture?  The ugly prospect of joint newspaper subscriptions and arguments over which way to hang the toilet paper?  The repulsive thought of Kelly and I discussing who took the garbage out last? The terrifying concept of us being able to make medical decisions for each other without carrying around a lawyers briefcase full of legal documents?  The horrifying idea that there would be two moms from one family volunteering at the pizza table at the school fundraiser?  The disgusting image of our holiday Christmas cards?   We are your neighbors, your brothers, your sisters, your mothers and fathers and your friends.  We are next to you in church and in front of you at the movies.  We cheer our kids on the soccer field and dance recital stages.  We complain about our tax burden with you and gather in the morning to relive the best moments of the Super Bowl or the American Idol finale.  We care for our elderly parents and struggle to make ends meet in difficult times.   And in these difficult times we want what you want – to build a life and a legacy with the person we love.

And finally, dear People of Maine, let me reassure you that if a vote comes my way asking me if I feel it is ‘right’ for heterosexuals to marry each other or if I feel it is a threat to my way of life, I will remember this week and the way I felt and I will not turn my back on you as you have on me.  I will stand up for equality for everyone.  Because it’s the right thing to do.

If Wishes Were Horses

I wish….

That I knew how to tap dance

That I understood the appeal of hiking

That I was a better writer

That the Carol Burnett Show was still on the air

That Liza still held my hand when we walk on the beach

That I liked yogurt

That I could take a walk with my father one more time

That the day after the Oscars was a nationally sanctioned day of rest

That there was a sports team, any sports team, I was remotely interested in.

That I was more effective at my job

That I trusted my ability to sing

That I didn’t hyperventilate when it was time for costume measurements

That I trusted my friends not to care about my costume measurements.

That money didn’t worry me so

That I could pick up Liza every day at 2:10 like other moms

That I liked to cook

That I was better at confronting people who have hurt me

That peak foliage would last two months and winter only one

That I had found the courage to come out to my mother

That I had something more creative to write about

That I didn’t worry what the other moms at Liza’s school think of me.

That I was kinder in word and deed

That I knew what the cat found so fascinating under the living room chair

That I took the time to go explore the woods behind my house

That I was more serious of purpose

That I had Kelly’s wit

That I didn’t fall so in love with the character I’m playing. The goodbye will hurt.

That I had realized how loud that cool new clock in the living room would be.

That I could call my sister and tell her I was sorry for being such a bratty kid.

That I had a sense of style

That I could spend a long morning over coffee with my college roomie.

That I wasn’t so chicken

That my oldest nephew would realize how much his family loves him

That I could motivate myself to exercise.

That I hadn’t hurt my ex husband so deeply

That I didn’t love reality tv so much

That my brother lived closer

That I cared about statistics and surveys and studies

That I had been a better mom to Liza in her early years.

That I had the guts to tell my friend to get the help she needs before she dies.

That typing that sentence didn’t make me cry.

That I could live with the mistakes of my past.

That Dani was here to tell me we all have pasts and we all live with them.

That Kelly could really know how madly passionately desperately I love her.

That I didn’t have to stop writing this and go to work.

That we could have a national discourse without screaming at each other.

That the fact that I want to marry Kelly would be a non issue to everyone.

That I  wasn’t such a sap and didn’t cry every time Liza goes on stage

That for today I can make at least one person laugh out loud.

That I will find one friend I haven’t seen in a long time and tell them I love them.

 

What are your wishes?

 

 

 

 

Empty Spaces: Musings On Absent Friends.

In one of the (to my mind) unfortunate consequences of the social media revolution we are often besieged with poems and quotes from friends and acquaintances waxing rhapsodic about the place of friendship in our lives.  “Friends come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime” is a popular forward along with all sorts of instructions about how many friends to send it on to and then of course the obligatory way to count whether you have enough friends in each category.  Then there are the occasional ‘your friend sent you a friendship flower!” messages on Facebook, or the gifts of “Friends are Forever!” flair for your virtual corkboard.

It will probably come to as a surprise to some that I ignore those. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. But in these the waning months of the 43^rd year of my life I have a hard time taking that kind of stuff seriously. Friendships can not be nourished with a cheesy email or a virtual pink flower.  My friends occupy a cherished place in my life and I take the care and feeding of those relationships seriously. But every time I get another quaint forward instructing me to ‘send this to 10 amazing friends” my thoughts and my heart go to one place: the friends I am missing, the absent friends and the empty spaces they have left behind.  I don’t mean friends who live some distance away from me — things like Facebook and iChat have rendered distance all but meaningless and I often connect with them daily.  No, I’m speaking of the friends who still occupy prime real estate in my heart but not in my life: friends who have died… and friends who have left me.

The first category is of course inevitable.  Part of living is accepting that people die, even your friends. Friends like Mark, the talented dancer who used to charm me with his Janet Jackson imitations over the dining hall tables at Holy Cross, and whose versions of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat” will stay with me forever.  The memory of Mark, whose future seemed so bright, and who died of AIDS in the early 90s before any of us who eventually came out of the closet were even close to doing so, remains frozne in time in the photos of our college heyday.  There is Sue, the gifted and slightly nutty director who pushed me to new creative breakthroughs and who lost her battle with her demons, leaving a hole in many lives in the NH theater community.   Or Kim, whose red hair and endless legs turned every head in the room, who had the ability to encourage even the shyest, heaviest woman that she could be a powerful strong dancer in her jazzercise classes, and whose battle with a rare cancer was fought with astonishing grace and inimitable style.  And then there is Dani. Dani, who I think of every day and every time “Rubberband Man” comes on my iPod.  Dani, whose pictures populate my home and office, who encouraged me to be true to who I really was, whose sly humor and beautiful smile made every dinner party, coffee shop gathering, or impromptu get-together special. Dani taught us all the value of a life well lived and, as importantly, that there is such a thing as a good death, a peaceful passing surrounded by friends, the color purple, music, and poetry.

I grieve the loss of these friends and their place in my world. But the friends who haunt me more are those still living, still close by, still in my heart, yet parted from me because of who I am.  In college I was blessed with two amazing friends I met the first week of freshman year. We took classes together, studied together, worked on shows together, sang together, partied together. We spent time in each others homes and grew close to each others families.  While one of us moved to far off places two of us remained within an hour of each other for the next two decades.  We were maids of honor and bridesmaids, godmothers and honorary aunts.  As we grew into women with young marriages we spent time in our new apartments, took bike rides and beach trips, drank gallons of wine and planned our futures.  We went through each others pregnancies together, pushed our babies through shopping malls on hot summer days just for the free air conditioning, commiserated over tantrums and potty training and the outrageous proliferation of shiny plastic toys in our house.   When we were fortunate enough for all three of us to be together we’d gather for wine or coffee while our kids played and reminisce about all that we had gone through together. They were the sisters of my heart and we joked about how while two of us together was wonderful, the three of us together always felt complete.

Then my marriage ended and I came out of the closet. (That very cut and dried declarative sentence hints at a story best told in stages perhaps at another time) Telling people about this change in my life was terrifying and as any gay person knows you don’t come out just once you come out over and over again. The prospect of having that conversation with my closest friends was daunting but I remained confident they would love me unconditionally even though they may not understand. For the most part that is what happened, my friends listened, they hugged, they asked questions, and in the end I like to think our friendships were stronger. For the most part.

I had haltingly, fumblingly tried to tell one of my friends what I was struggling with in that last painful year of my marriage. One night I opened an email from her that pulled the rug out from under me.  She told me in no uncertain terms she could never “approve” of this “lifestyle” I had “chosen” that she had even struggled with the fact that some of our best friends had already made that journey out of the closet and wondered what that said about her that she had ‘all these gay friends.’  She concluded by saying everything would be fine as long as I didn’t talk about it anymore and didn’t go “waving any rainbow flags in her face.”  This was six years ago and writing those words now still makes me cry.   How could she not see I was who I had always been? How could she not see I was finally trying to be all that I was supposed to be?  How could she say these things? She eventually apologized – but only for ‘drinking wine and writing emails late at night.’  A few months later,  we tried to get together again with our girls as we had for so many years but something had changed.  Conversation didn’t flow freely, I couldn’t talk to her about anything real anymore.  We watched the kids play at the children’s museum and parted awkwardly.  I haven’t seen her since.  She lives twenty minutes away from me, has a daughter the exact age as mine, writes beautifully, and shares a past with me that I treasure, but now lives a life I can no longer share.  We exchanged Christmas cards for a while but even those stopped eventually.  Briefly, after the loss of her father (oh how I adored her parents) and my mom, sympathies and platitudes were exchanged.  But for all purposes she is gone.   My other friend, the third part of this trio never opened the door for these conversations.  I tried a few times to talk over email about my new life, about Kelly, about how happy I am.  I tried to talk about how much I missed our other friend.  To do so guaranteed there would be no return email.  She briefly appeared on Facebook where so many of our college crew enjoy near daily exchanges and a few ‘real life’ reunions.  I let myself get my hopes up that this would bring her back to us.  It didn’t. She just as quickly disappeared.

I live a life so full, so rich, so blessed with friends from all corners of the globe that I tell myself this shouldn’t matter anymore.  That six years later I should be used to a life without them.  But the truth is that as much as I grieve the loss of my friends who died too young I grieve the loss of these sisters of my heart who left me.   I miss them. I wonder if they’ll read this and see themselves in it.  I wonder if they’ll ever come back to me.

So you see why cutesy cyber flowers and balloons irritate me, for they are easy ways out of truly nourishing the friendships that feed our lives. If there are friends in your life you’ve let slip away, go now and find them.   If there are wounds that need to heal, if there are rifts that need to mend, go now and fix them.   And if you have a friend in need, a friend in pain, a friend who needs help that maybe you can’t understand, go now and listen to them.  If you’re too far to connect, write them – an email, a letter, send a card – but please no forwards and no flair.   Let them know they matter.  I wish I could.

Is a Katie By Any Other Name Still a Katie?

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with my last name.   Growing up, my last name of Youngs put me at the end of every class list.  I spent twelve years looking at the back of Michael Wilson’s head in various homerooms and in high school of course the fates assigned me a locker next to James Young who was about a foot shorter than me and therefore always had to duck out of the way when I opened my top locker door.   In college it mean t I spent graduation sitting next to Patricia Yurkinas and Pete Yauch, two people I had managed to go four years without ever having met.   I spent 23 years explaining to  people that  my last name was indeed “Young’ with an ‘s’ on the end and my unfortunate handwriting caused more than one form letter to be addressed to Katie Yangs.

In 1989 I married Liza’s dad David and happily took his last name of Goodman.  “Finally,” I thought…”a nice last name in the early part of the Alphabet, but not so early that I will end up in the front of the line for anything. “  And so for the next 15 years I went merrily along without giving much of a thought to my name, which now seemed perfect.  My career progressed, my network of contacts and friends grew, I was appearing in many local theater productions, and slowly I built a career and some semblance of a professional and artistic reputation under the name Katie Goodman.

When Liza was five years old her dad and I made the difficult decision to end our marriage.  I’ll always be proud of the way we moved forward amicably, keeping Liza in the forefront of all decisions, and of the two loving homes we have created for her.    When our divorce was fresh I decided to keep my married name reasoning that I wanted the same name as my daughter and I wanted to keep my professional identity, which seemed to rest on this name.   Then David got remarried and suddenly there were two “Mrs. Goodmans.”  I wanted to honor his new wife’s place in his family, and gently told Liza I was thinking about retaking my maiden name.   Her howls of protest were deafening.   “People won’t know you’re my mommmmmmmm!” She wailed.   “We won’t be a fammmmmiiillllly!”   (Why is it that only 8 year olds know how to draw out otherwise lovely and benign words like ‘mom’ and ‘family’ to the point where they be come unbearable?) . I succumbed to her pleas and, let’s be honest, gave in to my inherent laziness and loathing for red tape, and  never  took the next step to change my name.

The subject lay dormant until early June when New Hampshire passed its’ landmark marriage equality bill.   Kelly and I had gone out to dinner to celebrate this historic occasion and the more pedestrian installation of our new carpet.   As we sat in our car bathed by the lights of Elm Street we spontaneously proposed to each other and symbolically moved our rings from our right to our left hands.   Later as we toasted our engagement with a fine shiraz at the Firefly Bistro I proclaimed “I can’t wait to marry you Kelly Ann Collins.”  “And I can’t wait to marry you Mary Katherine…uh….Youngs…uh Goodman,” she replied.    Huh.   What WAS my name anyway?  Understandably Kelly wasn’t too keen about marrying me with a last name that belonged to my ex husband,.  I realized the time had come to really get serious about changing my name back to Youngs.

But I was about to be thrown another curveball.

This week, when I told Kelly that I promised to move forward with finally going back to my maiden name she said “well since you’re going to change it why not just change it to Collins?”   In a million years I never thought that this marriage would be one that asked yet another name change of me.   “Hmmm,” I joked “don’t you think Katie and Kelly Collins sounds just a wee bit precious?”  “I think it sounds great!” she said.  “Well why don’t you take MY name?” I proposed.  “Because I’ve had this name for 42 years and I like it “ she said…you’ve already gone ‘round willy-nilly changing your name so I figure you can do it again right?”

“But,” I protested, “so much of my famly is gone now I feel strongly I want to preserve my family name and go back to Youngs.”   Of course  the 10-year old peanut gallery had to chime in from the dining room table where it was finishing up its math homework.   “Mommmmmm” (there it is again)  “your brother has the last name Youngs and he has three boys and they’ll get married and have kids and there will be lots more Youngs, so you can keep your name the way it is…Goodman.”   “But…”  said Kelly.  “But… “ said Liza.

“ENOUGH!”  I bellowed.  “This is my name and my name only and at the end of the day none of you get to decide what my name is…not you Liza, not you Kelly , not my ex husband, and not the guy at the coffee shop.”   They grudgingly and a bit sullenly went back to their homework and dinner clean up while I pondered how my name could produce such a strong reaction in them.   While, I had tried to reassure Liza that of course we’d still be a family no matter what my last name was.  I battled with the niggling worry that without the same last name as my daughter I would somehow lose that public recognition that I was her mother especially now that her dad and step-mom had another baby who shared her last name and were the very picture of a traditional family.  Would there be confusion at school? Would they still call me in emergencies or immediately call her dad and step mom?  Would I be relegated to the sidelines? Would it be weird?   I also struggled with Kelly’s desire that I take her name and the resentment I felt at her assumption that I would be the one who did so.  Was I still the ‘former straight person” in this relationship who would be asked to assume the more traditional role of wife?  I. Don’t. Think. So.   But then I haven’t been Katie Youngs in nearly 20 years.  The name sounds foreign and strange on my tongue and I’d have to give up my carefully perfected Katie Goodman scrawl on the bottom of documents and checks.   Even this blog bears my married name in its URL, even THAT would have to change.  Why is this issue of my name so loaded for so many?   Who am I anyway? Who have I been these past five years that I clung to my married name. Who should I be next year at this time?

What do you think?

Just Be Glad I Didn’t Get the Matching Pants

Living with Kelly comes with many perks – she cooks wonderful meals, empties the dishwasher, lets me put my feet in her lap while we plow our way through episode after episode of “Nurse Jackie” on demand, and of course lets me borrow her clothes.   Within days of her moving in I had already pilfered a few of her choice argyle sweaters and she had plundered my collection of button down shirts.   So when I returned home the other day to a pile of clothes in the living room and Kelly’s excited proclamation she had gone shopping my first thought of course was “what can I borrow?” Her pants were out of the question as Kelly’s inseam is a good four inches shorter than mine, although there was some promise in a few of the new tops. Then she showed me the vest.

It was pink — bright pink velour with rows of satiny trim on the collar and the unfortunately placed pockets.  I bit back my initial reaction of “are you kidding me?” and smiled and murmured a vague “mmmmmm” instead.    Now Kelly is no fool.  One of the things I love best about her is she always knows what I’m thinking – sometimes even before I do.   She knew I didn’t like the vest and she plotted the perfect moment to wear it.

This morning Kelly showered as I curled up with my coffee and contemplated the day ahead – some grocery shopping, a quick errand at Home Depot and then afternoon rehearsal followed by a pint or two at a nearby Irish Pub.  It was the perfect agenda for a gray day that would bring the first fat wet snowflakes of the year.   “I’m all set!”  Kelly called and I unfolded myself from the couch and headed upstairs to shower.   There she stood in our bedroom in all her glory, jeans, black long sleeve t-shirt and….the vest.   To complete the look she had added hot pink socks and her sturdy black nursing clogs.  As I groped carefully for my response she smiled wickedly, zipped the vest, stroked the velour and said “oooh yeah baby…. You hate this don’t you?”

Later in the car I got lost in the rhythm of the windshield wipers Kelly asked what I was going to write about next and I replied “that vest.”  We spent the next ten-fifteen minutes coming up with lines for my blog ranging from “the bejeweled zipper pull momentarily blinded me,” to “her popped collar and matching pink socks sent me flashing back to 1986,” to  “I didn’t know there was that much pink velour still in existence.”   Laughing to the point of tears, we pulled into the grocery store parking lot where I said  “you go on ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”  “Oh no lady,” Kelly replied,  “you can’t lose me in this vest, I’m like a beacon in the night.   As we entered the store I thought of how much laughter Kelly has brought into my life, the way my heart feels lighter when I’m with her, the way she inspires me to follow my passions, see beauty in myself, and let go of so many of my anxieties.  This quiet reverie came to an abrupt halt when Kelly turned to me, smoothed the vest, sucked in her cheeks, struck a pose and said “just be glad I didn’t get the matching pants.”

What I didn’t say — what I should have said –is that even in matching pink velour track pants there is no one I’d rather be seen with.

“There’s a Cat In the Freezer”, and Other Tales of Early Co-Habitation

Two weeks ago today I nervously reflected on what life would be like when Kelly and I joined households. I worried we’d bicker over cleaning or bump into each other in my tiny kitchen, that Liza would resent this other person taking away my attention and that none of us would get any sleep. My anxious tendencies in high gear I put all my acting skills to the test in order to appear calm as if I merged my life with someone else’s all the time. “Don’t freak out,” Kelly said on move-in day “when you see all the boxes in the basement.” Heading downstairs I found my desk, my clean quiet sanctuary for writing, bill paying, Face-booking and general escapism was now barricaded by box after box of Kelly’s books, pictures, kitchen gadgets and cat paraphernalia. Surely ever liquor store in sight had been raided for their boxes I thought idly while wishing that the Captain Morgan box held a leftover bottle or two instead of Kelly’s collection of private school yearbooks. “Heyyyyyy, no problem!” I replied with the exaggerated politeness of new college roommates on the first day of freshman year. “See how calm I am?” I said as I tried to figure out what we were going to do with three boxes of powdered sugar, two boxes of kosher salt and four bottles of olive oil, not to mention the seven (yes seven) varieties of shower gel our combined households had yielded. But that night as we sat, feet propped on the coffee table, wine in hand I looked around at the house, at the cats now venturing out from their hiding places under my mom’s old chair in the basement, and the soft glow of Kelly’s 42 inch flat screen tv and thought how nice this was going to be, this having Kelly with me every night as we blissfully headed into our future.

Then she started hanging things up.

Kelly possesses a wonderful and quirky collection of old school black and white photos of 1920s era sirens, a beautiful assortment of framed Charles Rennie Mackintosh prints, and pretty much every movie still from “Paper Moon” in existence. The ”who gets to hang what and where” discussion made our negotiations over which set of measuring cups and spoons we’d keep out look like child’s play. “Just because you HAVE all these things doesn’t mean you HAVE to hang them UP,” I said. “Just because you’ve ALWAYS had that stuff on the walls doesn’t mean you have to KEEP it up she replied.” We compromised, we haggled and in the end we both gave and we both got. She got to hang Paper Moon photos up our stairwell but gave in and replaced the twenties harlots in her classy black frames with great family photos of our Maine vacation and I agreed to take down a lovely but admittedly new-agey print about friendship. Her gorgeous prints look fabulous in our dining room but she conceded that really not all of them fit it and would be ok to leave a few down. The end result feels cohesive and very very much us.

Last Sunday I felt a new anxiety as I prepared for Liza to come home. I called her dad to see if he’d bring her by for a ‘dry run’ so she could scope out the changes to the house in advance. “I don’t want to come home to you ever again,” she said sullenly over the phone. “Ok then see you soon!” I said brightly in my “oh goodness no that remark didn’t hurt my feelings voice.” Then I went upstairs lay on my bed and cried. But God bless my ex-husband for coming through and bringing Liza over to see the new dining room table, the new artwork, the cats and much to her delight the new “way better than yours momma” TV. This dress rehearsal for the real thing seemed to do the trick and in spite of spending most of Monday worrying about how Liza would be when I picked her up at school, her re-entry into our home went surprisingly well. After a few bumps figuring out whether the cats would take to her (yes) and whether she wanted them in her room at night (no) we all settled in and Liza even opined that “it was fun here momma, I like having the cats.”

Ah yes. The cats.

While I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the cats don’t’ seem to be underfoot as much as I thought they’d be, and the shedding isn’t bad this time of year, and the Zyrtec seems to be keeping Liza’s allergies at bay, having four felines in residence has taken a bit of getting used to. They open my closet door and rappel up my hangers so they can nap on top of my sweaters, they tiptoe along the top of my bookcase, they commandeer the top of the fridge and climb in the dishwasher when I empty it in the mornings. One time I took some frozen waffles out of the freezer, set them on the counter and looked up to find one of the cats sitting in the freezer as if it was the most natural thing in the world. They can hear me flip open my laptop from 2 floors away and within minutes I will have one on the keyboard, one on my lap and one on my shoulders as if to say “whatcha writing?” A stuffed dog Liza won at an arcade has been kidnapped by one of our boy cats and we find it all over the house. But what has surprised me the most about living with the cats is something that I know I will take endless ribbing for because it defies my carefully cultivated ‘Cranky Yankee” demeanor: I love them. I love the way they cuddle between me and Kelly at night, the way one of them lies out side Liza’s door as if standing guard, the way they watch for me to come home from the kitchen window and the way they run downstairs with me in the morning when I feed them. I expected to grudgingly tolerate them. I didn’t expect to be so completely totally won over.

In the past few weeks our home has begun to settle into new rhythms and new routines – Kelly helping Liza with math while I make dinner, both of us teaching her funny songs and ways to remember her science vocabulary while we linger at the table. When Kelly leaves for work in the morning I open Liza’s bedroom door and she lies in bed cuddling with a cat or two while I shower and got ready. Her mood has gotten brighter. I’m smiling more. We ‘re all sleeping better. My thoughts during the day turn to home and wanting to be with my lady and my girl rather than finding reasons to work longer or take on more commitments. For the first time in over five years I have something to come home to that I’ve wanted for so long: A family, A real family under one roof. Here’s to the next chapter!

On Cohabitation, Cats, Cleaning, and Committment

Monday. Monday is just hours away. Tomorrow, five years of struggling as a single mom to Liza will start to come to an end and the great co-habitation experiment will begin. For the five years of our relationship, Kelly and I have clung fiercely to our independent lives. For a lesbian couple to be together for five years and still live in separate houses is nearly unheard of. We’ve all heard of that old joke that lesbians bring a u-haul and luggage on their second date – a stereotype Kelly and I were not eager to embrace. She’d lived alone for nearly 7 years when we met, I was freshly divorced and relishing a life of my own after going from college right to marriage in my early twenties. We often joked we’d be the only couple in history to get married, have a big reception and then go home to our individual houses after the honeymoon. Maybe we were only partly joking.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Kelly. I ADORE Kelly. When she came into my life I laughed longer and harder and blushed more furiously than I ever had. In Kelly I found my soul mate, that person who got references to old movies, lived for pop culture, and for some reason completely unbeknownst to me, thought I was beautiful – and made me feel it for the first time in my life. My happiness with Kelly has been so profound that in the early days of our relationship three separate people from completely unrelated walks of my life asked me if I’d “had work done” on my face because all my worry lines were gone. But in spite of the rosy bloom of new love we knew there were some roadblocks to moving in together – the biggest of course being that Liza was still quite young and I was fearful of moving a new person into her life and home too quickly. However there were other differences. “We have different standards of cleanliness,” Kelly used to joke to our friends and she was right. I used to clean the kitchen at her condo after she made me dinner – only to have her clean it again after me. I’d spend all day cleaning my house for her only to b e greeted with a vague mmmm hmmmmm” when I asked her if she noticed. Let’s face it, I’m not exactly a slave to cleaning products. There was also the issue of her cats. While my allergies got better over time due to repeated exposure and, to be fair, while I have come to love all ‘our’ cats – I’d never met anyone like Kelly who, well, let’s just say put their comfort above pretty much anything else. I like the cats but at the end of the day…they’re just cats, an attitude that often puzzles and maddens Kelly.

So this year when we finally decided we were tired of saying goodbye on cold Sunday nights, tired of packing bags for sleepovers back and forth, tired of paying a mortgage and rent, two sets of utilities bills and tired of not feeling like a real family all time, we decided it was time for THE BIG MOVE. Honestly, I’m thrilled that we’ll have a home together. I’m delighted that our lives are moving toward marriage I’m ecstatic that we’ll grow old together. I’m relieved to have another set of arms rowing our financial boat and another pair of shoulders to take on the household responsibilities. And I’m terrified.

Living with another human being can be daunting. It exposes all our strengths and weaknesses and makes us vulnerable to scrutiny. I’m not terrified of what I’ll learn about Kelly. I’m terrified what she’ll learn about me and about what I might do or not do to make her wonder what she ever saw in me. What if I inadvertently let the cats out into the woods behind our house? What if the proliferation of wayward drier sheets all over the house ceases to be a charming quirk and becomes a major irritant? What if she’s horrified that I like to lie in bed at night and watch classic Star Trek episodes on Hulu? What if she discovers my habit of eating a bowl of cereal before bed when I’m stressed out. What if we can’t finesse a shower schedule for 2 women and a girl with varying beauty routines? What if Liza, admittedly not the easiest child to live with, makes her crazy? What if she decides that her life of peace and quiet and cats and cleanliness is more attractive than a life of moody tweens, the Jonas Brothers, and toothpaste hardening on the bathroom counter? What if I never sleep again between nocturnal cat wandering and her penchant to snore after a hard day at work? What if I can’t make her happy?

As I sit back and reflect on the newly cleaned-out closets and empty spaces awaiting Kelly’s clothes, dishes, books and furniture I am surprised to find myself oddly calm. Tomorrow she will come fully into our lives, with her love of Coen brothers movies, her penchant for finishing my sentences, her amazing macaroni and cheese recipe, the uncanny ability to know when I need her to rub my head at night when I can’t sleep, and a heart as big as the universe. Will we drive each other crazy? Most certainly. Will we make a new kind of family out of three headstrong often maddeningly hormonal females? Undoubtedly. Will it all be worth it? Do you have to ask?

The Anxious Parent

In August Liza, her dad, and her stepmother welcomed a beautiful baby girl to their family. I’m told she sleeps nearly all day long and posesses a calm happy demeanor. The few times I’ve seen her I’ve been awestruck by her flawless infant skin, big eyes, and adorable rose-bud of a mouth. I’m delighted for Liza and her family and love seeing my ex husband practice his patented “one –arm baby holding” pose. But I can’t help but be struck by the difference between this baby and Liza during her infancy. Where her baby sister is calm and placid Liza came screaming into the world as a red faced ball of fury. Nothing seemed to pacify her – not slings or swings or toys or walks in the stroller. The only things that would calm her were sleeping on top of one of us, her pacifiers, or music (although even the she could be finicky – eschewing soothing ballads she seemed to prefer patter songs such as “Pick a Pocket or Two” or “I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight” ). The hazy blur of her first year is punctuated by moments of utter exhausted desperation as I searched vainly for something to make her happy. I became convinced that the problem was not my fussy frantic baby – it was me. Why were other moms so good at this when I was so very very bad? This notion that resurfaced last weekend when I commented to my ex husband how lovely his sleeping baby daughter was and he jokingly replied “yeah, I guess we know where Liza’s fussiness came from huh?”. I know he was teasing but there exists a grain of truth in every jest and the truth here was clear – I was the anxious parent and I had given birth to the anxious child.

When I was pregnant I imagined myself taking to parenting like a duck to water. I’d lovingly sing my baby to sleep, we’d stroll the neighborhood where passersby would comment on how cute and good she was, I’d manage it all, going back to work handily and still finding time to come up with creative and educational ways to bond with my daughter.

Boy did reality dope slap me “upside the head’ (as we say in Maine).

My maternity leave passed in a blur of days when I could barely get myself showered, of crying hunched over my screaming child as I heard my ex husband’s car pull out of the driveway on his way to freedom each morning. “What do you WANT?” I would wail , wondering what fates had given me this baby when clearly I was supposed to have the happy smiling babies in the pampers ads. Even bringing her on simple outings gave birth to fits of worry – how far could I drive before she started screaming? Days at home stretched endlessly – could I make it through a shower without her wailing? Would she sleep more than 30 minutes at a stretch? The days and nights blurred together and I remember especially sitting with her at midnight in the rocking chair of the nursery watching the lights of my neighbor’s houses go out one by one and feeling so utterly totally alone. I tried to return to my beloved jazzercise classes, taking advantage of the free babysitting, only to get called out of class after class to retrieve my furious baby. My return to work was full of calls from her daycare a block away “she’s still crying can you come get her/hold her/ rock her? ” Honestly looking back on that first year of Liza’s life I don’t know who cried more, me or her. We tried gas drops and different formulas, let her sleep in her vibrating bouncy seat and held her until I felt as though my arm would literally fall off. I reached out to a dear friend who had a baby just two months older thinking we could spend our time commiserating about the trials of new motherhood. What a shock to my system to discover not only had she morphed into an uber-mom but her daughter was nothing like mine. While her baby spent literal hours examining the wonder of her own hand, mine discarded every new discovery within minutes as if to say “is that all you got? Come ON I’m bored here!” Instead of a comrade in arms all I found was the puzzled stare of a woman unfamiliar with the utter terror I felt at being a mom. My anxiety around Liza’s temperament grew stronger with each passing year . Surely a better parent would handle her better. Surely a better parent would be calm. Surely a better parent would not have slammed the wall over the changing table so hard in frustration that the photos on the other side of the wall came crashing down. Surely a better parent was anyone other than me. Other parents talked about bringing their children out to eat with them at any number of restaurants – I had a child who shook and hyperventilated if you brought her anywhere she “hadn’t been before,” a child who at 5 ran screaming down the block outside a bagel shop because she was convinced the steam from the bagels meant the shop was on fire. I”d love to tell you that I handled her anxiety with aplomb, calmly guiding her through new experiences and soothing her fears. I didn’t. The worse her worries got the worse my anxiety about her worries got. Like the worst kind of relationship between addict and enabler we fed off of each other in a vicious cycle. I grew used to the tightening in my chest every time I had to navigate another experience that could lead to one of her meltdowns, and the resulting sigh of relief as we got through one unscathed. Years later Kelly would tell me that one friend even expressed her sympathy that Kelly had to ‘spend time with that child.” That friend isn’t in our lives any more.

That horrible first year is now a decade in the past. Liza’s grown into a funny, talented, sarcastic young lady who shares my love of Sondheim, a passion for ice cream, and a budding fascination with HGTV. We share the same thighs, the same belly and the same walk. Together we’ve weathere d ten years of tears at the onset of new experiences — tears on the soccer field, tears at the rock climbing birthday party, tears at clowns at the circus, tears on countless school mornings , worries about fire drills and thunderstorms , tests and gym class. Ten years of crying behind my sunglasses on the way to work wondering what I’d done wrong, why all around me were parents with kids who moved easily from one thing to another, parents who didn’t live with a tension in their chest all day. Ten years of waking up praying that the morning would go smoothly. To Liza’s credit she’s worked hard, grown up, agreed to some outside help which has been a huge benefit, found her niche in acting and dance thanks to encouraging and nurturing teachers and directors, and come into a calmer more confident place in her life. Her dad and stepmom created a warm secure home for her, extended family has wrapped her in love and Kelly and my friends have hung in there with her time and time again with love and patience even when it’s been hard to understand. I’m often seized with a desire to clutch her fiercely to me as if to stop the relentless march of time . As Liza grows more mature and calmer she’s helping me do the same and we’ve found our way to a better place. But as I coo and exlaim over her adorable baby sister I’m seized with a longing to go back in time – to hold that angry squalling baby one more time and murmer in her ear that it would all be alright and that Liza and momma would get through it all and that most of all …there was nothing to worry about after all.

Peas in a Pod

Eating for One

My best friend in the whole world is coming for a visit next weekend. With him will come nearly 25 years of shared experiences, highs, lows, laughter, tears….losses….and gains.

Joe and I met at an audition for a college production of “Equus” in 1985. He was a funny talented freshman who made a point to come talk to me after my audition to tell me how good he thought I was. I responded with the cool assurance of a sophomore who thought she knew the theater department ropes pretty well by then. We basked in our mutual admiration and went on our way.

Neither of us got cast. Turns out we weren’t as spectacular as we thought we were. But that failed audition brought a force of nature into my life I can’t imagine living without. My Joe. MY Joe. Having drawn a monosyllabic weight lifter as his freshman roommate (your basic nightmare for young gay theater boy), he’d show up at my dorm room door with a blanket, a pillow and a stack of books asking plaintively “can I study in here?” Both of us were English majors who spent far too much time in the theater department and as such were glued at the hip. We snarked our way through three years of poetry and drama classes together — one time even naming everyone in our contemporary poetry class after the poets we were studying. “ I think HE looks like a W.S Merwin don’t you?” I’d inquire. “ Yes but SHE is absolutely a Louise Gluck.” When a classmate asked for an extra bluebook during a test Joe snarked “boy, you’re optimistic aren’t you?” Like me he shared a deep love for really great writing, a passion for musical theater and Sondheim, and a strong desire to mock the uber-serious students around us who refused to see that the world was one big glorious playground if you looked at it the right way. In acting classes when we’d pile on top of each other for the inevitable soundbeast (where you’re supposed to become all inventive and listen to each others sounds and build a wonderful cacophonous noise) Joe would instead start saying the names of 1970s tv stars. Around us earnest young actors would be click-clacking and “ahhhhhh” ing and woofing and there he’d be calmly injecting “Gavin McLeod.” “Polly Holiday.” “Charlotte Rae.” When a new building on campus was dedicated to the memory of a woman named Edith Stein we promptly renamed it the Edith Bunker building. We insisted there had to be a way to get a MacArthur fellowship to study the importance of sitcoms and buddy cop dramas on American culture. We’d steal guns from the theater department prop room and play Cagney and Lacey or Charlies Angels in the hallowed halls of academia. Joe was beloved by everyone in his orbit and I was just grateful to be along for the ride.

Our friendship endured through a marriage (mine), a few relationships (his), a divorce (mine), death (my parents and sister), major career changes (his), a child (mine –but his goddaughter), a major life change (mine) and a sad and painful breakup (his). And through it all there is nothing that makes me smile more than to have my phone ring and hear on the other end “what do you think that girl who played Dee on What’s Happening? Is up to these days.” Or to receive an email with an attached photo of Joe dressed up in a kimono with the caption “do you think I’d ever get cast in Pacific Overtures.” Every Oscar night was spent glued to the phone with each other dissecting fashions and acceptance speeches. For me, nothing was sweeter than making him laugh so hard he couldn’t breathe. I’m often told I’m funny…but to make Joe laugh is the gold medal of humor.

One other thing bound us together. Our love of food. Lifelong struggles with weight and self confidence plagued us both. Life can really whollop you but a really good lemon cake never disappoints we’d say. I loved eating with Joe. When you’re a fat girl and you find someone you can eat with without self-censoring yourself it’s like manna from the heavens. Any excursion we took would be peppered with “you know, I could go for a snack” or “hmmm …why don’t we eat?”. We explored high-brow restaurants and diners, stopped for ice cream, and sat for hours over the Saturday morning breakfasts he and his (then)partner would prepare for Kelly and me when we visited. Of course we’d talk about how fat we are, joke about moving to Afghanistan where burkas were all the rage (“they’re so LUCKY over there” we’d say). Oh sure along the way we’d yo-yo at different times, I’d go through one of my many flirtations with Weight Watchers, lose a bunch of weight then gain it all back plus the requisite 10 more pounds. We’d always talk about getting up early to go for power walks but would sleep in and drive to get coffee instead. He had his time at the gym and I had my time at jazzercise and my attempts to turn my gigantic body into that of a cyclists. (Probably the most futile effort in weight loss history ).

Right now I’m heavier than ever. Always a stress eater I turned again and again to comforting carbs as I tried to deal with the most difficult work climate year of my entire career, parenting difficulties, and residual grief from the loss of my mother. Excessive snow and ice made it easy to stay home and eat and hide my fat under layers of fleece. The bigger I got the less excercised, feeling sure that everyone who saw me walking or at the gym was mocking me. Clothes stopped fitting. I bought an assortment of colored tops so people at work wouldn’t notice I only had two pairs of pants I could wear anymore. Photos depressed me. Life, as it always does with me, became about my fat. This cycle however, coincided with Joes renewed commitment to fitness. Stronger and leaner than ever he looks wonderful, healthy and handsome. But when we got together a few times in June something was different. He didn’t join me and Kelly for snacks, he didn’t want to stop for lunch. He was thin and had acquired a thin person’s sensibilities.

I felt like an alchoholic who loses his bar-crawling buddies. My food buddy had abandoned me. I felt awkward and self conscious about what I ate in front of him. Of course I made the usual jokes about my girth and panicked when he suggested we start off his visit with a trip to an exercise class. Near tears I wrote him begging him not to ask this of me. I couldn’t go back to that class. It was too hard to wheeze and groan in front of women I used to keep up with. I didn’t want to be the subject of the “what the hell happened to HER she’s bigger than ever?” comments. I couldn’t bear the conversations where people’s eyes would furtively dart to my fat rolls instead of my face. “Of course honey of course,” He replied. “It’s you I’m coming to see we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” He’s my best friend, someone who would never hurt me and who understands me better than anyone on the planet next to Kelly and loves me with a fierce devotion that humbles and honors me. But in the back of my mind as I look at the new photos of his lean buff physique and compliment him on how great he looks (for indeed I don’t think he’s ever looked better), I wonder what he thinks looking at my photos.

Yeah I know. It’s not all about me. I get that. Nor is this meant to be a pity party. I got myself this fat and sooner or later I have to get myself out of this cycle. The responsibility for my obesity sits squarely on my shoulders. And honestly I couldn’t be happier for Joe that he’s found such a great new state of health and fitness at a time in his life when he needs to feel really great about himself. But as I prepare for his visit next weekend, eagerly anticipating the laughs, the snark, the musical theater references, and the long quiet talks about what’s happening in our lives, there’s a part of me that will miss my food buddy. But maybe, just maybe, it’s time I learned how to navigate the world of food without him by my side. Maybe it’s time I finally learned to eat for one. And I know as I try yet again to make this journey toward a body that doesn’t shame me, he’ll be there for me as he always has been to make me laugh, let me cry, and love me for who I am and not my dress size. My Joe. MY Joe. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My Joe...

Chasing Ghosts on the Beach: A Family Vacation Story

Hazy dawn greets me our first morning in Maine. The familiar smell of salt marshes at low tide and the promise of sunny humidity makes me grin with anticipation of a day on the beach with my family. Liza wakes, all tusseled hair and eyes that suddenly seem to belong to a 20-year old. Uncharacteristically she makes her bed, straightens her room before joining me at my perch on the screen porch. “I think this seems weird momma, but I feel like it’s home here, she says.” While she’s been traveling to Maine with me her whole life her visits had mostly consisted of long days in nursing homes and hospitals during my mother’s last few years of life. This is her first bona fide Maine Vacation. But for me, it is home.

The night before, after a long sweaty day of packing, traffic, unpacking, and grocery shopping we finally arrived at the promised land – Higgins Beach in all its glory. The three of us plunge into the waves and the cold Atlantic washes away every ounce of heat-induced irritation we had been feeling. Nostalgia has already begun battling with reality on this trip – every mile of Route 1 (for I insisted we take the ‘real road” not the turnpike) brings memories “ there used to be a make-your-own sundae bar there… now it’s a hotdog stand!” “I remember our 8th grade science class trip through Scarborough Marsh…” “Oh boy,” groans Kelly, “Here we go.” And she and Liza roll their eyes at each other in their favorite pastime of “let’s make fun of momma,” but I ignore them. My trips to Maine are always nostalgic but this one especially so. With both parents and my sister gone and my brother living in Rhode Island, my tether to the state is tenuous at best. “I’m one of you!” I want to say to the locals in the Hannaford as we stock up the beach cottage kitchen. “Ignore my New Hampshire plates, I belong here!”

Higgins Beach is the beach of my youth and around every corner lurk the ghosts of the family I’ve lost. My mother, sitting low to the ground in her beach chair as the water laps around her feet. My brother, my only surviving family member, in boogie shorts, hanging out at the end of the beach where the river flows through the marsh to meet the sea, hot- dogging it and diving with his buddies. My grandfather, gone nearly 30 years now, sitting in dress pants and a button down shirt in his beach chair, binoculars at the ready to ‘watch the fishing boats,” but really following that circa 1970 bombshell in the bell bottoms and bikini top as she strolled down the beach. I drag Kelly and Liza through the narrow streets on a hunt for the house we rented for three weeks one summer. I think I’ve found it but am shocked it’s now yellow. “ But I remember it RED,” I say, not thinking that nearly 40 years has past since that summer and of course it would be painted many times over by now. I remember its outdoor shower, the back bedroom I shared with my sister, and the spiders in the corner. My chest aches the way it always does when I call Marie to mind but I feel a strong need to tell Kelly and Liza these stories, to name them as if to prove that we were here. That once I did have a family that made this same journey to this beach. That there once was a mother who held her daughter’s hands and shouted ‘Jump the waves!” Could I ever have imagined then – a chubby four year old, fat eight year old, awkward teen – that I would one day hold my own daughter’s hands and shout the same thing? “I’m getting really good” shouts Liza as she body surfs a wave to shore, and suddenly all I can see is my father – barrel-chested, with thatches of white hair — teaching me how to hit the waves at just the right moment to carry me in. I expected this visit to Higgins to be glorious, the stuff of summer dreams. I didn’t expect to come face to face with the ghosts of my dead family members in the process.

Monday morning, Liza and I sit on the porch for what has become our vacation routine, talking quietly – me over coffee her over chocolate milk – as the neighborhood awakes and Kelly sleeps. She asks why I always refer to my mother as “grandma’ but to my father as “daddy’ in stead of “Papa Joe” which is what she has learned to call him. I explain that she knew her grandmother so it seems natural to refer to her as such. But for her my father exists only in stories and a few photos. To call him anything but daddy rings false to me. “Would he have liked me?” she asks. “Oh my darling…” I start to reply…but can’t go on. I swallow and continue, “…he would have adored you.” She beams, secure in the love of a man she will never know but who would have sung her to sleep and walked the beach with her in search of sea glass if he’d had the chance.

On our afternoon trip to Old Orchard I tell Kelly and Liza how we used to take my mother there to play ski-ball on Mother’s Day each year – some years it would be cold and near freezing but there we’d be at the beach, as it if was a great treat for her to spend her Mothers Day at Palace Playland. “Uh huh” says Kelly and I’m momentarily crushed by her reaction. I want all of this to mean as much to her as it does to me. “Tell you what,” she says a bit sarcastically “someday we’ll do this same trip but in downtown Lawrence and I can tell you about MY childhood.” I look around and realize that now Old Orchard is interchangeable with Hampton, Salisbury, Weirs or any number of summer beaches where girls in swimsuits drip water onto arcade floors while playing Guitar Hero.

Later that evening after a much-needed cooling dip in the waves, we head to the Lobster Shack, where Liza has pledged to try her first lobster. So many family Christmas card photos were taken here on the rocks of Two Lights State Park. We reminisce about my mom in her last year of life so determined to make it up the long steps to the red picnic tables for one more meal of clam cakes and French fries. After dinner (where Liza professed to love the claws of the lobster but be ‘freaked out’ by the tail meat), we sit on the rocks and watch the waves crash down on the same rocks I’ve climbed my entire life. We sit in companionable silence until Liza says suddenly, quietly, “momma, I like your stories.” At the gift shop we chat with a man visiting from Lennox, MA and Kelly and I tell him about this vacation-cum-trip down memory lane but he doesn’t laugh. Instead he regards me seriously and states “that’s so great. That’s so great you’re doing this.” I no longer feel I’m clinging foolishly to a past and a family that are no more but that I’m preserving that time for me and for my new family.

Every visit to Maine brings me face to face with a certain type of woman I’ve known my whole life- one I’ve always tried to be with dazzling failure. We see them everywhere – at the beach, the lobster shack and the ice cream stand we stop at afterwards. These are the women so many of the girls I grew up with have become – tan, slim, athletic, in tennis skirts, khakis, or tiny denim shorts with perfectly faded J Crew Sweatshirts. I feel as I often do, too big for my surroundings. Marked by my rolls of belly fat and oversized hips that barely squeeze into our beach chairs, by my spiky gray hair and ensemble-a–la Target. As a child I longed to be one of those tanned young goddesses and now as a middle aged mom I’m once again plunged into their midst, still an outsider. My legs are lumpy, thighs doughy not toned from tennis or running the Beacon to the Beach marathon. Even Liza seems different from their children who sit at the neighboring picnic table in Life is Good t-shirts and board shorts with the white blonde hair of children who spend entire summers on the water. I laugh at how after a lifetime with people like this I still get it wrong. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m happy with who I am but as surely as the ghosts of my family haunt this trip so too do the ghosts of my childhood self, a fat girl in purple Tough- Skins from Sears surrounded by the golden goddesses of privilege in my hometown.

A friend of Liza’s arrives to spend a few days with us and the decibel level in the house skyrockets. We all head out to lunch with my godmother (my mothers’ best friend) and other family friends where more stories are shared and swapped. We make a quiet pilgrimage to visit my parents graves in Falmouth but I feel empty there, as though they are with me more at the beach than in this cemetery backing up to the 13th hole of the Country Club Golf Course (the only hole my father was ever able to play with any skill). We end the day telling stories on the porch and laughing long into the night. It was the kind of night I’d been waiting for – the kind of vacation I’d dreamed about giving Liza since she was born. Where she could run free on he beach, live in bathing suits, grow tan, and sleep like a rock at night. We take the girls to Funtown where I launch into more stories – my brother holding court in the batting cages, my mom ruling the mini golf course, my sister going so fast down the super slide she ran into the chain link fence at the end. These attractions are all gone now – the only one that remains is the old helicopter kiddie-ride. I’d never let my father push the silver bar down to make our helicopter fly higher so we always stayed barely bumping above the pavement for the whole ride. “Figures,” laughs Kelly as she hugs me. What an apt metaphor for my life – so often afraid to really fly I stay in my safety zone just above the ground. Liza, fortunately, is not me reincarnated as much as I sometimes would like her to be, and she takes off for repeat rides on flumes, roller coasters and the Pirate ship. I close my eyes and hope for her that she always finds the courage to push down on that silver bar and fly her helicopter as high as she can.

No matter where our vacation travels bring us my morning routine is the same – arise before anyone else, usually no later than 7:00 a.m. (not by choice, I’m usually unable to sleep later than that and Kelly, a more sound sleeper than I, can usually slumber for a few hours past that at least). So I make the best of it and get up to read, write, or simply watch the world wake up around me. As usual, the morning brings an endless parade of joggers and power walkers. Kelly and I like to joke about saying “yeah run pinhead run” while we take another bite of our bagel. This morning we’re preparing for a visit from two families of Liza’s school friends for the day. After getting everyone packed and sun-screened I grow resentful of my role as mom-organizer. Kelly and Liza’s friend have taken off ahead of us for the beach leaving me and Liza to make sure we have all the towels, boogie boards etc. Liza asks why I look frustrated and I burst out petulantly “maybe I’d like to walk on the beach while someone makes me breakfast- maybe I’d like to sleep late once in a while, maybe I”d like someone else to make sure everything is ready for the beach maybe I’d like to feel like I’m on vacation too!” Liza takes my hand and says in a small voice “momma I’ll walk on the beach tomorrow morning with you if you want.” And a marvel at how such a simple gesture has the power to make me realize how foolish I sound for griping so much about a role I usually willingly assume.

When our friends arrive with a grand total of three girls and three boys between them I’m struck by how different boy energy is than what I’m used to. The kids take over the beach, body surfing, exploring tide pools where the boys exult over the find of some eels and hermit crabs, snacking on grapes and brownies, sandwiches and chips they come and go from our blankets tanned, happy and sandy. Predictably, Liza’s friend who has been staying with us finds a new friend on the beach, an older teen much more interesting than “our “ gang of kids and promptly ditches everyone for the new girl necessitating a least one full out man hunt of the beach. When we find her, not at all where she was supposed to be or said she’d be I give my first hardcore “I’m very disappointed in you young lady’ speech to someone other than my own child which, judging by the surprise on her face, might have been a first for her. Later that night after pizza, backyard volleyball and big thank-you hugs, our company departs for home bringing our teenage guest back home with them as planned. Liza and I walk the quiet streets until dark and I listen to Liza rant about how hurt she was by her friends actions, how angry she felt at being shunted aside for someone older. For the first time I hear a difference from the usual childhood “she won’t share” complaints that arise among her friends and realize I’m hearing for the first time the confused and hurt sentiments of a young lady who has just come face to face with the ugly truth that we can love our friends and they can still let us down. I encourage her to try to remember the great parts of having her friend visit and not focus on the events of the last afternoon. “Maybe,” she says, “but not right now. I’m still too angry.” We stop and hug for a long long moment. I smoothe her hair and we turn the corner back to our cottage where Kelly is waiting.

We spend the next day taking a break from the beach – visiting Portland’s shops and museums and saving our walk on the beach for early evening. A sudden thunderstorm drives us in and we head out for dinner on our last night in Maine. It’s high blueberry season and we grow hysterical at the endless offering of blueberry specials on the menu – from blueberry martinis to blueberry glazed chicken to blueberry pie. “It’s blueberry palooza!” we laugh. I love the dynamic of the three of us when we’re at our best like this. I want to freeze this moment forever. Later, while cuddling on the couch with me and Kelly, Liza says “I’m glad it’s just our family now.” Just Our Family. I may have come to the beaches of Maine to confront the ghosts of my past but in the process I was able to send them back out with the tide that retreats further and further from the shore in the late afternoon. Turning my back to the sea I see the family I have now right in front of me and realize that while I may have thought I was “coming home “ to Maine, in fact I had my home with me all along.